Re: How 'stable' is 'testing'?

["nate" <debian-user@aphroland.org>]

Neal Lippman said:
> I am wondering how stable people are finding testing for use on their
> workstations. I am running woody, and very happy with it. However, I
> would like to be a bit more up to date with some of my software - for
> instance, I'd like to be using KDE 3 instead of 2.2, and the newest
> evolution, so I was thinking about doing a dist-upgrade to sarge. I
> don't, however, look forward to severe breakage now that I finally have
> my system configured and working.

a quick search tells me that the latest KDE available in the offficial
debian archive is 2.2 in both testing and unstable:

http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/search_packages2.pl?keywords=kdebase&searchon=names&version=all&release=all
another quick search tells me that evolution in testing is the exact
same version as in stable:

http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/search_packages2.pl?keywords=evolution&searchon=names&version=all&release=all
I am not sure what version your looking for(I don't use either
of these applications).

I personally would wait a while before trying sarge, until the team gets
to somewhat of a freeze point(the freeze can last upwards of 6-8 months
or more until a release). At least during 2.2-> 3.0 upgrade testing
was quite stable for about a year before the release of woody(I say
quite stable as in I never had a broken package). Some people like
unstable for the latest & greatest and don't mind if a broken package
comes along once every few weeks(or few months). I'm not in that camp
though.

But packages.debian.org is your friend, if theres something you want
that you think is in testing, check the site first, as with your first
2 programs you asked about they are the same in testing & stable so
upgrading wouldn't change anything(if you were to stick to the official
archives at least, going to 3rd party sources may be different).

Also with testing(I stopped using testing when stable came out), I
find it useful to not upgrade often, once every 2-3 months not everyday
or every week, that helped me further avoid any potential problems, but
at the same time most of the software I use is mature enough to not
have many problems to begin with(e.g. I use afterstep from debian
potato as my window manager). Evolution, KDE, the latest gnome, the
latest mozilla, openoffice etc are all very complex programs and
have a higher risk when running the latest versions.


nate